The two living species occur in Queensland. B. spectabilis grows in warm, wet, tropical rainforests, on protected slopes and near streams, primarily in the lowlands of the Wet Tropics Bioregion. However, it has a local form with serrate pinna margins that grows in rainforest, Acacia-dominated transition forest, and also Casuarina-dominated sclerophyll forest on the Atherton Tableland, where it is subject to periodic bushfire. B. serrulata grows in sclerophyll forest and transition forest close to the Tropic of Capricorn.[4][5][6]
Fossils
The fossil species Bowenia eocenica is known from deposits in a coal mine in Victoria, Australia, and B. papillosa is known from deposits in New South Wales. Both fossils are of Eocene age, and consist of leaflet fragments.[7]
Bowenia spectabilis in the Daintree Rainforest in northeast Queensland, AustraliaBowenia Lake Tinaroo form in sclerophyll woodland near Lake Tinaroo, Atherton Tableland, far north QueenslandSerrulate margin of the pinnae on a wild plant of Bowenia Lake Tinaroo form, at Lake Tinaroo, Atherton Tableland, Queensland, AustraliaBowenia Lake Tinaroo form in sclerophyll woodland near Lake Tinaroo, Atherton Tableland, far north QueenslandBowenia serrulata growing in transition forest near Byfield, in the Capricornia region of Queensland, Australia
References
^ abHill, Ken; Leonie Stanberg; Dennis Stevenson. "The Cycad Pages". Genus Bowenia. Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. Archived from the original on 2020-10-24. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
^Stevenson, D.W. (1981). "Observations on ptyxis, phenology, and trichomes in the Cycadales and their systematic implications". American Journal of Botany. 68 (8): 1104–14. doi:10.1002/j.1537-2197.1981.tb06394.x.
^Hill, K.D.; Stevenson, D.W. (1999). "A world list of Cycads". Excelsa (Journal of the Aloe, Cactus and Succulent Society of Zimbabwe). 19: 67–72. ISSN0301-441X. OCLC612375682.